Archive for the ‘sammy sosa’ tag

Last year’s version of this post is here; it has links to prior years where I went into my general thought process on yes/no votes per individual player. I’ve tired of writing the same 2,000 word post on the topic since everyone else on the internet is, so this is a bit shorter of a HoF post. And it won’t insult me if you don’t respond or even read this post; there’s far, far too much hall of fame arguing going on in the baseball blogosphere, and i’m no more or less qualified to publish an opinion on this ballot than many of the official BBWAA writers at this point.

The 2015 ballot at baseball-reference.com is here. Once again there’s too many deserving players for not enough spots.

For me, there’s three no-brainer 1st ballot hall-of-famers new to the 2015 ballot: Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez and John Smoltz. The first two should be unanimous but of course they won’t. In fact, we already have a published ballot of someone who left both off so he could vote for others who “needed the votes.” Smoltz might be borderline for some but for me he’s better than other hurlers recently enshrined; somehow I doubt he gets in this time around.

No for Smith, McGriff, Walker, Mattingly, Sosa and anyone else new to the ballot this year not otherwise mentioned. Why are these No votes? See 2012 and 2013′s links for my reasoning on the names here, all of whom are repeats.

Of course, this is too many “Yes” votes. If I had to cut two of my 12 Yes votes, I’d guess Martinez and McGwire are the first two to go. Or maybe Schilling. Which is a shame because I think all the guys in the “maybe later” have legitimate cases too. But this is the bed that the BBWAA has made for itself with its arbitrary player limit and its wishy-washy stance on alleged PED users.

2015 voting Prediction: Johnson, Martinez and Biggio elected. Smoltz just misses, and Piazza & Bagwell get close enough that they’ll go in with the 2016 class (which only has one no-brainer candidate in Ken Griffey, Jr). Still no love for Bagwell, the PED brothers, or Raines, much to the chagrin of the sabr-crowd.

1/6/15 update: My prediction was too conservative: Johnson, Martinez, Smoltz and Biggio inducted in 2015. Piazza got 69% of the vote and seems like a good bet for 2016. however Bagwell and Raines lagged seriously behind, at just 55% of the vote each. Another huge gap after that leads to a trio of players in the mid 30s … not nearly enough to talk about them getting in next year.

Before starting, if you hadn’t heard Deadspin has bought a Hall of Fame vote this year and is going to submit it as populated by crowd sourcing. Click on this link to go to Deadspin.com’s page to vote. Voting at deadspin ends on 12/28/13 and all hall of fame ballots are due to be mailed back to the BBWAA by 12/31/13. The class of 2014 will be announced later in January.

Everyone else has a post about how they’d vote if they had a BBWAA ballot. Here’s mine. Only its slightly different from how i’ve done these in the past.

Joe Posnanski has put out a survey in October 2013 that anyone can take that simply asks you to rank the 2014 candidates 1-10. It is an interesting exercise because it very quickly highlights the depth of the ballot, since as everyone knows, there are many very deserving candidates who are outside the top 10 and who may very well fall off the ballot this year because of the glut of candidates. It also makes you think; if you rank your candidates 1 to 10 … how many names would you be leaving off your ballot that you’d want to vote for?

So, instead of doing a “who’s on/who’s off” post like i’ve done in years past (and like everyone else does) here’s a different take driven by Posnanski’s ranking question.

My first 8 “Yes Votes” were relatively easy: Maddux, Bonds, Clemens, Thomas, McGwire, Bagwell, Glavine, Piazza. I don’t think there’s one of those 8 candidates who shouldn’t be a slam dunk hall-of-famer based on baseball accomplishments. (That most all of them likely do not get in because of PED suspicions is another story). The only one of my top 8 that doesn’t match with Posnanski’s survey results is McGwire (replace him with Raines, everyone’s favorite Bert Blyleven-style charity case for getting more support).

Then I got stuck. Who were the last 2 I’d put on the ballot? Lets look at the rest of the 2014 ballot:

Voting No altogether: Walker, McGriff, Palmeiro, Smith, Sosa and anyone else new to the ballot this year not otherwise mentioned. Why are these No votes? See 2012 and 2013’s links for my reasoning on the 5 names here, all of whom are repeats.

Remaining Pitchers in order that I’d likely vote them in: Schilling, Morris, Mussina

Remaining Hitters in the order that I’d likely vote them in: Raines, Martinez, Kent, Biggio, Trammell

So I guess my last two would likely be Schilling and Raines, or perhaps Raines and Martinez.

Man, tough ballot this year.

If there wasn’t a 10-person limit, then I’d go crazy and probably vote for 16 candidates, basically the first 8 plus all the other “remaining” players above. I’m by no means a “small hall” person, and I’m also not obsessed with the stat-driven arguments against Morris. I think all these guys merit a plaque in Cooperstown.

Coincidentally, to all those people who write 1,000 words on all the things the BBWAA should do to fix the congestion issue (expand beyond 10 names, remove the 5% threshold), just stop wasting your time. Year after year the BBWAA stays in the news for weeks at a time exactly because they refuse to change the standards. Why would they relent now?

If you want to read how I’ve weighed in on the Hall votes in year’s past, here’s some links:

And lastly, I have a huge draft post dated from Dec 2011 with pictures from my actual visit to the Hall of Fame that I started but never finished (mostly because adding pictures to WordPress is a huge pain in the *ss). Maybe I’ll get bored, finish it up and post that in conjunction with the 2014 class announcement.

Biggio has to wait for enshrinement to the HoF. Photo Karen Warren/Houston Chronicle

Obligatory HoF Reaction post.

I wasn’t going to write one. But email/text conversations later I thought it may just be easier to write a thousand words on the topic.

As the front page of the BBWAA site says, “No players elected for the first time since 1996.” Also for only the 8th time in the history of balloting, no player was elected this cycle by the electorate.

We all knew this day was coming. You can google articles from nearly 5 years ago when the whole slew of these first time players were first known to all be eligible on this ballot and know this day was coming. And now here we are.

My interpretation of the results for the major players kind of goes like the following:

Craig Biggio was “penalized” by some voters for not being a “First Ballot Hall of Famer” calibre player. Therefore lots of voters who have annointed themselves the keepers of this title skipped voting for him this year. Much like what happened to Roberto Alomar (who went from 73% to 90% from 1st ballot to 2nd) we probably see Biggio get > 90% next year. He’s clearly a hall of famer, but clearly not a first balloter in some eyes.

Jack Morris is screwed. He only rose from 66% to 67%, indicating to me that enough people have bought into the anti-Morris narrative that has been so fully expoused by sabre-tinged writers to outlast the old-school guard of baseball writers who covered Morris and remember him as I do.

Piazza and Bagwell both are side effects of the PED argument, but clearly get more credit for possibly being clean than the next two names. But enough people are believing that “back acne” proves PED usage for Piazza, and “muscles” proves PED usage for Bagwell, so both will likely struggle to get to 75% for a few years.

Clemens and Bonds: both getting almost identical vote totals in the 36-37% range despite both being amongst the best who ever played indicates a clear statement being made by the older voters, who clearly are penalizing these guys for their alleged/accused/leaked grand testimony involving PEDs. I’ll bet though that both players will get significantly more votes in subsequent years and probably eventually make it.

Sosa and McGwire: probably both never get in, since both are in the 12-16% range. Writers clearly believe both guys were 100% the product of andro and steroids, and thus artificially gained their accomplishments.

Bernie Williams and Kenny Lofton both amazingly will fall off the ballot. I don’t think either are HoFamers but I also thought they deserved to hang around on the ballot for a while (kind of like a Dale Murphy or a Don Mattingly) to discuss.

Tim Raines and Lee Smith are probably never getting in; their vote totals don’t seem to be changing much, and a slew of more deserving names are coming in the next 5 years.

Edgar Martinez, Trammell, McGriff, Walker, Mattingly: they’re all marginal candidates for different reasons, and they all seem likely to die on the ballot in the 30-40% range. I like Martinez for the Hall; in a sentence if you elect the best relief pitchers, how can you not elect the best designated hitters?

Palmeiro sealed his fate the moment he tested positive. It doesn’t matter if he broached magical barriers of 500 (homers) and 3000 (career hits). He’ll never get in.

Lastly, the interesting case of Curt Schilling. 38.8% on the first ballot. What does this mean? He’s definitely never been accused of PEDs, had a great peak, was absolutely one of the best pitchers in the game for at least a short amount of time, has 3000 Ks but not 300 wins (or close to it), had an iconic moment in the bloody sock game, and was on two different WS winning teams. A 127 career ERA+ puts him career 48th, even or ahead of plenty of hall of famers. Why so few votes? What statement is being made here? I’m not sure entirely. Maybe this is a combination of the “not a first ballot hall of famer” denials AND some sense of outrage against the outspoken Schilling from older media members who covered him and still vote primarily with their egos.

Back to the question of the article; is the HoF in trouble? Well, yes and no.

No because I think Biggio will be elected next year, along with two more big names who have never had a schred of PED accusations (Maddux and Glavine). And you can see guys in each of the subsequent years easily being elected (Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez in 2015, Ken Griffey Jr in 2016, Pudge and Manny in 2017 unless there’s still PED outrage at that point. And that ensures there’s ceremonies with who should be absolute no-brainer electees each year for the next few years.

But, Yes because Cooperstown and the Hall itself are not always profit making endeavors, and having an election year without any recently retired players is going to mean a massive drop in income for the town and the hall. Reportedly the museum has lost money in 8 of the last 10 years. That coupled with the continued recession, and we could see some serious financial hardship in upstate New York in 2013. Will it be enough that the BBWAA agrees to one of the litany of election system changes being proposed on the internet? Maybe, maybe not. But if this continues into 2013, yeah we may see something change. Perhaps a panel of judges versus the BBWAA electorate (similar to what the NFL does) makes sense in the long run. The point is that the HoF NEEDS to have a compelling election class in order to stay profitable, and may change its entry mechanisms to guarantee attendance (and thus revenues) each year.

One thing I do agree with; I think writers who purposely send in a blank ballot should be removed from the voting system. You just can not look at this list of players and tell me there’s not at least ONE deserving candidate. A blank ballot does nothing but hurt the chances of legitimate players to be honored and should be interpreted as a writer who does not take the process seriously.

Murkier are my thoughts on entrance requirements to the BBWAA in general. Should we allow in all these internet baseball writers? I think that a lot of the moral outrage and indignance expressed by frequent baseball bloggers over the BBWAA and the “old school” writers is simply mis-placed jealousy that they (the internet blogger) are not eligible to vote. There is a section of the BBWAA constitution that talks about internet writer acceptance and the requirements don’t seem that unfair. The intent of the organization is to find people who “cover the game” but also people who actually “attend the games,” interview players and coaches, and are generally members of the traditional media. People who have access and who understand more than the average baseball blogger, who interprets box scores and statistics websites to pass judgement. I’m ok with the limitations set out as thus.

Two other quick thoughts:

Yeah, we should probably increase the 10-player limit.

Yeah, we should probably force writers to reveal their ballots (much as the major awards now do).

Until next year. One thing is certain; much like relief over the end of the election news, I’m relieved that no more HoF articles will be appearing.

As we’re about to read, over and over again from every writer in the Baseball world, this is the Steroid-era ballot. Several of the biggest names of the era are on the ballot. Just in case you were wondering who has or hasn’t been officially linked to PEDs, here’s a handy guide for your ethical dilemma.

I typed up such exhaustive opinions on a number of candidates from the two previous versions of these posts, that I won’t repeat them here. Instead i’ll just state below, of the returning candidates this year here’s who I’d vote for and who I wouldn’t in list form.

Returning Candidates I’d vote for:

Jeff Bagwell

Jack Morris

Tim Raines

Mark McGwire

Edgar Martinez

Returning Candidates that I would NOT vote for (my reasons mostly are stated in the 2012 class post referenced above):

Bernie Williams

Alan Trammell

Lee Smith

Larry Walker

Rafael Palmeiro

Don Mattingly

Fred McGriff

Dale Murphy

New Candidates in 2012 that I’d vote for, with some discussion; Unlike a lot of opinions I state, my thoughts on the Hall of Fame have always been more driven by how a player “seems” to be in the pantheon of baseball history. I don’t like to get into the same stats-driven discussions that other writers do. So and so had a career WAR of X, or a career ERA+ of Y, which makes him better than this other guy.

Barry Bonds: A transcendent player before any use of “the cream” or “the clear,” this 7-time MVP is clearly in the pantheon of the greatest players of all-time. The best 5-tool player since Willie Mays, the only thing that should have been standing in the way of unanimous voting is Bonds’ surly nature towards sports writers (several of whom would have “penalized” him by omitting him from first ballot status).

Roger Clemens: replace “7-time MVP” with “7-time Cy Young winner” and the Bonds argument essentially repeats itself with Clemens. Normally we’d be talking about his place as one of the greatest right handed pitchers to ever play the game. Instead we’re talking about how much of his later career was enhanced by virtue of foreign substances.

Mike Piazza: One of the best 3 hitting catchers of all time (Johnny Bench being the best, with Yogi Berra in the discussion), his purported “back acne” proof of steroid use likely costs him votes. Which is just ridiculous, but that’s the nature of this ballot and the next 15 year’s worth of ballots unfortunately.

Curt Schilling: his career accomplishments don’t include a Cy Young award, but that wasn’t for lack of trying; he just happened to pitch in the same ERA as Randy Johnson and Johan Santana in his prime power. But Schilling was a game-changing starter, an Ace who could get you the win. He was one of the biggest “big game” pitchers out there. And, his legendary playoff performances push him over the top for me. Some will argue against him b/c he “only” had 216 wins or he “only” had a career 3.46 ERA. He passes the eye test for me.

Craig Biggio: he wasn’t the flashiest player, but then again you can’t judge middle infielders the same way as you judge power hitters. Biggio hit the 3,000 hit plateau, was a good combination of power (291 career homers) and speed (414 career SBs), and showed good defense (several Gold Gloves). For one of the last career one-team guys, he makes the cut for me.

New Candidates that I would NOT vote for:

Sammy Sosa: 600+ career homers, and I can’t help but think that a good number of those were either PED or corked-bat assisted. That’s probably completely unfair, but you can make a good argument that more than 150 of his career homers were likely “surplus” to his legitimate career capabilities. He averaged 37 homers/season as he approached his prime, then suddenly averaged 60/season for four seasons. Clearly Bonds’ 73-homer season is attributable to a single-season PED spike, but Sosa made a career of it. There’s just no way for me to distinguish who the real Sosa was (he had a 99 OPS+ the year before his power spike) versus the PED enhanced version.

Kenny Lofton: I know lots of people view Lofton in the same breath as Rickey Henderson in terms of quality lead-off hitters, but to me he was just a vagabond who kept looking for work year after year. He played for 12 teams by the time he hung them up. Perhaps I’m not really “remembering” his time in Cleveland, where he stole a ton of bases and set the table for that powerful lineup. He had a handful of gold gloves, a handful of all-star appearances. I may be under-appreciating him a bit, but when I hear his name I don’t knee-jerk Hall of Famer.

Everyone else first time eligible, the best player of which is probably David Wells. Wells basically had two good seasons (the only two times he received any Cy Young consideration) and otherwise was a rubber-armed hurler who prided himself on making 35 starts despite being in god-awful shape (as noted extensively in Joe Torre‘s book The Yankee Years).

I’d be shocked if anyone else on the first time eligible list got enough votes to even stay eligible for 2014’s ballot.

Critics may state that my fake ballot has some inconsistencies; how can I support a vote for Biggio but not for Trammell? How can you vote for McGwire but not Sosa? How can you vote for Edgar Martinez but not Larry Walker? How can you vote for *any* PED guys but shun Sosa and Palmeiro? How can you support Morris but not support Wells? All these are good points; good arguable points. Maybe if I had an official ballot I’d have a more serious discussion with myself about these points. All the above thumbs-up/thumbs-down opinions are mostly knee jerk, did the guy “feel” like a hall of famer as opposed to a full statistical analysis. As I covered in my Jack Morris piece, I think its ok to have slightly lesser players who contributed more to the baseball pantheon than slightly better players statistically who had no real lasting impact on the game.

And for now, that’s good enough for me and my fake Hall of Fame ballot.

A viewing of the HBO special “Freakonomics,” which turns chapters of the popular book into little mini vignettes, along with a conversation with my father prompted me to investigate the aspects of human behavior with regard to incentives when considering the rise of Steroid use by major league baseball players in the late 1990s. One of the overriding themes in Freakonomics is that any aspect of human behavior can be predicted by analyzing the incentives facing those persons when making a choice.

So the question here is, were the growing incentives to players in terms of rising baseball salaries directly tied to the growing use of Steroids in the mid 1990s?

Steroids had been around for many years prior to appearing en-masse in Baseball. The most infamous use came from the East German Olympic teams during the late 70s and early 80s, who systematically doped their own athletes (mostly without the athlete’s knowledge) from 1971 until 1990. But seemingly only after the 1988 Seoul Olympics saw sprinter Ben Johnson test positive for one steroid and admitted the use of a host of other Steroids, Testosterone and HGH substances did the “Steroid Era” in baseball start. In fact, 1988 is also acknowledged as the beginning of the era in the Mitchell Report (per Section D of the Summary, pg SR-14). However, I’d argue that the mainstream usage of Steroids didn’t occur for a few years after (see the rise of 45+ homer seasons below).

Here’s a chart of Mean and Median US household income from 1974-2010, with the Minimum and Maximum MLB salaries, the Average MLB salary, that MLB salary listed as a multiple of the US mean income, and the number of 45+ home run seasons seen per year:

Year

Median Income: Current Dollars

Mean Income: current dollars

Minimum MLB Salary

Maximum MLB Salary

Average MLB Salary

Avg MLB salary as multiple of Mean US income

# of 45+ Homer Seasons

2012

$480,000

$32,000,000

2011

$414,000

$32,000,000

$3,305,393

0

2010

$49,445

$67,530

$400,000

$33,000,000

$3,297,828

49

1

2009

$49,777

$67,976

$400,000

$33,000,000

$3,240,206

48

3

2008

$50,303

$68,424

$390,000

$28,000,000

$3,154,845

46

1

2007

$50,233

$67,609

$380,000

$23,428,571

$2,944,556

44

4

2006

$48,201

$66,570

$327,000

$21,680,727

$2,866,000

43

5

2005

$46,326

$63,344

$316,000

$26,000,000

$2,632,655

42

5

2004

$44,334

$60,466

$300,000

$22,500,000

$2,486,000

41

4

2003

$43,318

$59,067

$300,000

$22,000,000

$2,555,000

43

4

2002

$42,409

$57,852

$300,000

$22,000,000

$2,383,000

41

4

2001

$42,228

$58,208

$300,000

$22,000,000

$2,264,000

39

9

2000

$41,990

$57,135

$200,000

$15,714,286

$1,987,000

35

4

1999

$40,696

$54,737

$200,000

$11,494,794

$1,726,000

32

6

1998

$38,885

$51,855

$200,000

$14,936,667

$1,378,000

27

9

1997

$37,005

$49,692

$200,000

$10,000,000

$1,314,000

26

3

1996

$35,492

$47,123

$200,000

$9,237,500

$1,101,000

23

6

1995

$34,076

$44,938

$109,000

$9,237,500

$1,094,000

24

1

1994

$32,264

$43,133

$100,000

$6,300,000

$1,154,000

27

0

1993

$31,241

$41,428

$100,000

$6,200,000

$1,062,000

26

3

1992

$30,636

$38,840

$100,000

$6,100,000

$1,012,000

26

0

1991

$30,126

$37,922

$100,000

$3,800,000

$845,383

22

0

1990

$29,943

$37,403

$100,000

$3,200,000

$589,483

16

1

1989

$28,906

$36,520

$60,000

$2,766,667

$489,539

13

1

1988

$27,225

$34,017

$60,000

$2,340,000

$430,688

13

0

1987

$26,061

$32,410

$60,000

$2,127,333

$402,579

12

3

1986

$24,897

$30,759

$60,000

$2,800,000

$410,517

13

0

1985

$23,618

$29,066

$60,000

$2,130,300

$368,998

13

0

1984

$22,415

$27,464

$30,000

$2,500,000

$325,900

12

0

1983

$20,885

$25,401

$30,000

$2,500,000

$289,000

11

0

1982

$20,171

$24,309

$30,000

$2,500,000

$245,000

10

0

1981

$19,074

$22,787

$30,000

$2,500,000

$195,500

9

0

1980

$17,710

$21,063

$30,000

$2,500,000

$146,500

7

1

1979

$16,461

$19,554

$16,000

$1,170,000

$121,900

6

3

1978

$15,064

$17,730

$16,000

$700,000

$97,800

6

1

1977

$13,572

$16,100

$16,000

$700,000

$74,000

5

1

1976

$12,686

$14,922

$16,000

$700,000

$52,300

4

0

1975

$11,800

$13,779

$16,000

$670,000

$44,676

3

0

1974

$250,000

$40,839

0

There’s several landmark seasons of note in terms of escalating Salaries through this list. By year:

1975 saw Catfish Hunter become the first “true” Free Agent subject to bidding wars among teams, and signed a 5yr/$3.35M deal with the Yankees that resulted in his league-leading salary to nearly triple the league leading salary from 1974.

1979 saw Nolan Ryan become the first $1million/year player.

In 1982 George Foster became the first $2M/year player.

By 1989, Kirby Puckett became baseball’s first $3M/year player.

In 1992, Barry Bonds hit free agency on the heels of MVP seasons in Pittsburgh and more than doubled the previous high annual salary.

2001 saw Alex Rodriguez‘s infamous Texas contract kick in, paying him $22M/year, nearly $7M more per year than the next closest player (Kevin Brown, who signed baseball’s first 9-figure contract).

Rodriguez opted out of that same contract and re-negotiated the terms even higher with the Yankees, eclipsing the $30M/year mark by 2009.

Meanwhile, take note of the red-colored years of 1996 to 2001, the core of the Steroid Era. 1996 saw no less than Six players eclipse the 45 home run barrier, including Brady Anderson in a complete aberration year for the lead-off hitter (he hit 50 homers in 1996 but averaged just 19 per 162 game segment and never hit more than 24). Suddenly in 1998 no less than Nine players eclipsed the mark, lead by the Mark McGwire/Sammy Sosa home-run hitting competition that transfixed the nation and “saved” baseball. Too bad we now know what America didn’t know then; that both players were using Performance Enhancing drugs to beef up, help power out baseballs and take advantage of a slew of new ballparks that opened in the era that featured cozier dimensions and more offense.

By 2002, enough pressure from the front office towards the player’s union had taken place to start testing, leading to the infamous “anonymous survey” done of players in 2003 that resulted in “between 5-7%” of players testing positive, leading to mandatory testing in 2004. By 2008 we were back down to homer levels not seen since the early 1990s, and baseball didn’t see a single player hit the 45 homer barrier in 2011. But historically the damage has been done; the home run leader boards from the time period in question lists like a Who’s Who of steroid accusations, and a generation of middle-aged baseball writers who grew up idolizing the home run leaders of yesteryear now seems set to penalize these players for their drug usage (proven or otherwise, as with the Jeff Bagwell Hall of Fame case).

But, everything I just wrote is known narrative. Lets talk about the explosion of baseball salaries as compared to the common man. In 1975 the average MLB salary of $44k was a little more than 3-times the mean US household income, having risen only gradually over the years thanks to the Reserve clause and a non-existent players union. It was a boon for owners, who kept salaries down and profits high. But the low salaries also meant that most baseball players were considered “within reach” of the every-man in America. Players weren’t paid such ridiculously high salaries that they essentially live in a different world from the fans (as is the case today with most professional athletes in this country): these players were considered “just like us” to a certain extent, and frequently had off-season jobs, working along side the same people who paid a few bucks for a bleacher seat to cheer them on. “America’s Pastime” largely earned that title from being the only sport in town for most of the century, but was also helped along by the “within reach” argument.

By 1980, with the country in a severe recession and gas lines around the block, Joe Public slightly increased his average pay. However, Baseball players, thanks to the breaking of the reserve clause and the rise of Free agency were seeing a boom in salary hikes. By 1980, the average MLB wage was 9 times the median income in the country and a few ballplayers were making $1M/year. This ratio of US income to MLB income grew slightly over the next decade; ten years on in 1990 the average MLB wage was just 16x the US income. But changes were about to come. In 1996 the MLB salary multiple was 23-times the US mean, but by 2001 it was nearly 40-times the US mean salary. The average MLB salary more than doubled inside of these 5 years. This change coincided exactly with the beginnings of the Steroid era and also mirror the 6 year stretch where the game saw its historical rise in home runs.

So the question is: is this coincidence? Was the rise in steroid use driven by player’s desires to maximize their earning potential or was it vice-versa (i.e., players discovered steroids could escalate performance, started using and producing and that lead to the quick rise in payroll?) Or was this all more attributable to weaker pitching driven by expansion and smaller ball-parks?

I think you can make the case that home run hitters were highly compensated and were commercially the “heros” of the game (remember the “Chicks Dig the Long Ball” commercials?), and other players figured out that Steroids helped pack on muscle mass and enabled themselves to hit the ball further and faster (to say nothing of the fact that steroids enabled players to come back from injury faster and to stay stronger through the season by virtue of added muscle mass), and rode the trend. Hit 40-45 home runs one year, sign a contract extension the next. Suddenly the game found itself full of juiced up, highly compensated sluggers with a massive ethical problem.

We all knew who was eligible for this ballot, thanks to the excellent work at baseball-reference.com. All the anticipated ballots are available for perusal along with statistical summaries of each player’s career and a few Bill James-inspired metrics created to give simple statistical measures of Hall-worthiness.

2012’s ballot is the last year before the Steroid accused superstars start becoming eligible (Bonds, Sosa, Piazza, and Clemens are all on the 2013 ballot for the first time, in addition to Schilling and Biggio) and the narrative about Hall of Fame voting turns to morality voting for the next decade or so. Gee, I can’t wait. All these players played in an era where there was no testing against PEDs and no MLB-specified rules against PEDs, but voters continue to penalize these players as if testing WERE being done, as if there WERE rules at the time they played. Meanwhile nobody talks about the PEDs that were prevalent for the last 30 years or so (amphetamines, or “greenies” in baseball parlance), and many players from the latter part of this decade freely talk of playing on speed. Frankly, it isn’t fair. We didn’t penalize Bob Gibson and put an asterick next to his accomplishments for pitching in a pro-pitcher, massive ballpark era did we? No; that was the game at the time. We don’t talk about how baseball fields used to be caverns with 480 foot distances and 30 foot walls, making triples far more common than homers. No; that was the game at the time. And frankly. the steroid era will eventually be remembered for what it was. Sometimes I think the anti-PED crowd is just a bunch of middle-aged white guys who are really peeved that an arrogant black ballplayer in Barry Bonds broke the cherished home run records of storied players from their youth (Babe Ruth and the far more likeable Henry Aaron). But I digress.

That being said, I like doing these Hall of Fame blog posts, if only because I usually disagree with the rest of the baseball blog-o-sphere on what really constitutes a Hall of Famer. I’ve been watching baseball long enough to form my own independent opinions on players and not depend on revisionist historians turning mediocre players into other-worldy hall-of-fame electees (see Blyleven, Bert and my stated opinions on his Hall-worthiness ahead of the 2011 ballot, and especially read the comment section where people refuse to address any aspect of Blyleven’s playing career and only use statistics to canonize him).

Notwithstanding that comment, I believe we’re being too parsimonious with Hall of Fame elections. Nate Silver from the NY Times wrote on this same topic in January of 2011, pointing out another interesting fact about the Hall of Fame (namely that roughly 13% of active major leaguers at various points in the 1930s and 1940s are now in the Hall). I’m not advocating that we need to be looking at 10% of current active major leaguers for the hall, but I am advocating that we be less “parsimonious” with the voting. This may seem contradictory to my opposing the candidacy of Blyleven; not so. There are a number of very deserving candidates who are not getting the votes they need. There seems to be several reasons for this:

Players whose accomplishments in the pre-Steroid era are being discounted for the lack of “big numbers” (Larkin, Raines, Trammel, McGriff to certain extents).

Players who toiled in the Steroid era are either users/suspected users (McGwire, Palmeiro), or are being caught in the steroid web (Bagwell).

Players who are suffering from a conflict of opinion in the voter base for various reasons (Smith, Morris, Martinez).

I’m not sure how to resolve any of these situations frankly. But I’d hate to have these players languish on the ballot and age off of it and have to wait for some nebulous Veterans committee to enshrine them after they’re dead (see Santo, Ron). Some people advocate modifying the voting methodology, but in reality there’s no easy fix.

Back to the 2012 ballot: the only candidate eligible for the first time this year worth any discussion is Bernie Williams. For me, Williams was a nice player who retired early instead of facing the inevitable end of his Yankee career. He was part of a great core group of home-grown Yankees that formed the core of the late 90s dynasty team and will certainly be remembered as a great franchise player. That’s not enough; he was never the best player on his own team, he never sniffed an MVP vote and he never accumulated enough production to warrant being a focal point in the opposition. He had a great 5-year run … but if we were electing people on 5-year runs then Juan Gonzalez would already be in.

For the rest of the remaining candidates, I’ll borrow some from last year’s version of this post. I’m not going to go into major statistical analysis for each candidate (that analysis is freely available on most every major baseball blog site out there), but will state my opinion with a few choice links. On my hypothetical ballot I’d vote for:

Jeff Bagwell: a career 149 OPS+. That’s a career averaging nearly 50% better hitting than the average MLBer. That he’s being lumped in with actual PED users without a shred of proof has become the latest hall of fame “cause” on the internet, starting with this excellent article accusing BBWAA writers of “plagiarism” (when I think he really means laziness, frankly). At least I support this one. Here’s an excellent case for Bagwell. You won’t find anyone penning a “case against” him that doesn’t claim that he’s a PED user without the proof.

Jack Morris. The “anti” sabrematrician selection. Here’s a link to the most canonical case against Morris, as well as Joe Posnanski‘s anti Morris (and anti-other) rant. And here’s a case for Morris from former Washington Post writer Richard Justice, now with MLB, which goes a lot towards my way of thinking about the guy. Lots of people seem to be spending as much time arguing AGAINST him as they did arguing FOR Blyleven. I wonder why that is? Maybe there really just is a kind of pitcher who you had to see in context versus looking at his stats after the fact. Nolan Ryan “only” had a 112 ERA+ for his career and was barely a .500 pitcher, yet was a first ballot overwhelming hall-of-famer. There’s some disconnect here. For me, the vote for Morris is about the “feeling” of a dominant pitcher, just as Blyleven was about the “feel” of a mediocre pitcher, no matter what his eventual career stats looked like. For people who say this is fallacy, I say this: judgement of a player can not ONLY be done by looking at his stats. Morris had a reputation for “pitching to score,” though sabrematricians have attempted to debunk that pitching-to-score exists for some time (see this link on baseball prospectus, then note at the bottom that despite 3500 words he says “none of this proves it doesn’t exist.”) but he also had a reputation for being the “Best pitcher of the decade.” Bill James published a list of factors to consider, when evaluating a player’s candidacy, and the one takeaway I got from that list was (paraphrased) whether or not a player was the best on his team, the best in his league, a guy that the other team was afraid of. Morris was that, for a period of more than 10 years. His last two seasons took him from a 3.70 era to a 3.90 career era, and may have pushed him over the edge to his current stat-nerd polarizing stance. For me, he was THE pitcher of the 80s, led one of the most dominant teams ever (the 1984 Tigers) and pitched a 10-inning complete game win in one of the best games ever played. Those things stand for something, and should add up to more than a clinical analysis of his era+.

Barry Larkin: lost in the shadow of Ozzie Smith for so long, that people forget that he was an excellent defender AND a great hitter. Long overdue for enshrinement. Here’s a pretty stat-heavy analysis FOR him.

Tim Raines. Case for. Its hard to find cases against. Raines, like guys like Trammell and Larkin, played in the shadow of Rickey Henderson for so long and was always judged to be 2nd best. But his accomplishments, especially during the earlier part of his career, should be enough to get him into the Hall.

Mark McGwire: He was a lock before the PED ensnarement. I say “ensnared” despite him using a completely legitimate supplement at the time. He didn’t try to hide it either.

Edgar Martinez: I recently watched one of the games from the great series “MLB’s greatest games” of the last 50 years, and one of the games was the great game 5 playoff in 1995 between the Mariners and the Yankees. David Cone in that broadcast said that Martinez was “the best right handed hitter he ever faced.” And it struck me; Martinez indeed was one of the most feared hitters of his day. Look at his career: he didn’t play a full season til he was 27 and he played a ton of DH. He also retired with a career slash line above the mythical .300/.400/.500 targets. For those that discount his heavy use at DH I ask one simple question: if you think Martinez didn’t contribute that much by just being a DH, then how can you possibly support the inclusion of a one-inning relief pitcher/closer? Who do you really think contributes more, a DH with his 650 PAs or a relief pitcher with 60-some innings in a season? In reality, you can’t. It just takes an uber-DH like Martinez to press the issue.

Specific Names i’d leave off and why:

Alan Trammell: I just don’t think he was a dominant enough player to warrant inclusion. I’d place him well behind his peers at shortstop for the ERA. There’s plenty of support for him in various forums though, with good arguments for him.

Lee Smith: My tried and true argument; closers are incredibly overvalued, and especially closers with lifetime ERAs in the 3.00 range and with a career whip that’s closer to a league average than it is to dominant. Sorry; Smith isn’t a HoFamer for me.

Larry Walker: the whole “he played in Colorado” angle probably isn’t as true as we think, but he still enjoyed a bump in his stats because of it. Otherwise he’s in the hall of Good, not the Hall of Fame.

Rafael Palmeiro: its less about his idiotic stance in front of congress as it is about his method of “accumulating” his way to historic numbers. Much like the discussion we’ll eventually have about Johnny Damon (who is only a few hundred hits away from 3000 but clearly isn’t a transcending player), Palmeiro was always a good, solid guy but never that much of a game changer.

Don Mattingly: I would love to vote for Donny Baseball, but being the Captain of the Yankees just isn’t enough (well, unless you’re a NY writer). Retired too early, not enough power for a first baseman, peaked at 25 and struggled into his 30s.

As always, I write my response before reading his, and sometimes edit questions for clarity.

Q: Do Ross Detwiler or Tommy Milone have a chance to beat out John Lannan for a rotation spot?

A: Doubtful. Lannan may not throw as hard as Detwiler but he’s a more complete pitcher. Lannan is underrated; look at his career numbers; never missed a start, no injuries, and sits right at 4.00 for his career. His K/9 numbers are ticking up, as is his velocity. Milone needs to show that he has Maddux-level control before really showing that he can stick in a major league rotation. I know Milone looked pretty good in September, but if you look closer at his game log, he didn’t exactly go against the best competition; the Mets twice (fielding a AAA lineup), Houston (worst team in the league by 10 games), Miami in the last week of the season, and Philly during their September swoon. I’d give Detwiler more love, but he has yet to show during 3 different MLB stints the ability a) stay healthy and b) stay consistent. He throws too much across his body, making his delivery difficult to repeat and his breaking stuff too flat. I think Detwiler makes the rotation as a #5 unless we sign another FA; at which point we DFA Gorzelanny and turn Detwiler into a long man-spot starter. Milone starts in AAA. Ladson says Lannan is in the rotation, unless he’s traded for a CFer.

Q: What is your opinion on center fielder Yoenis Cespedes, and do you think Rizzo will go hard after him?

A: He looks promising; comparisons to Sammy Sosa without the steroids. However, he’s not projecting as a true CFer (more of a corner) and this team doesn’t need a corner outfielder. Plus, the Cuban league isn’t exactly equivalent to the high minors, so he’s not a 2012 option for teams. He’s looking at at least 1 full year in the minors, perhaps two. That’s a lot for a reported $30M price tag (or higher). I think he goes to a team looking for the longer term. Ladson agrees with the above, but says the Nats are interested.

Q: Trying to acquire Roy Oswalt is lacking any real logic. Oswalt had a losing record last year. His balky back meant he had the fewest starts in his career. He will be a year older next season. It would be risky at best to acquire Oswalt. Why do it?

A: The questioner really should look at Oswalt’s career stats; yes he had an injury last year but it was the first of his career. In fact, for an 8-year stretch he was among the most durable (and best) starters in the league. Who cares about his record; look at his performance. 3.69 era in a hitters park, 1.33 whip not great but not terrible. K/9 down slightly, but his bb/9 is consistent with his career. How much of this was due to his pitching with the injury? I’d much rather have Oswalt on a 3-year deal than Buehrle. Ladson agrees, noting the same items I did and throwing in some glowing quotes from Jayson Werth.

Q: Do you think Coco Crisp could help the Nats? He is a free agent and I don’t think he would cost a lot of money for even a two-year contract.

A: NO. Look at my CF-only post, where you find that Crisp had a 91 ops+ and a negative UZR/150. So, he can’t hit AND he’s a defensive liability. Why do we want him again? I’d rather stick with Werth in center and get a one-year alternative for a corner OF. Ladson says the Nats aren’t interested in any FA not named Cespedes, and will pursue a trade.

Q: Is Michael Cuddyer an option for the Nats? He’s got a good bat and is good defensively. Would the Nats consider starting Werth in center and let Cuddyer take over in right?

A: Presumably this was written before Cuddyer was linked with the Phillies. I’m not sure i’d entirely say he’s good defensively (he was marginally positive UZR/150 in RF, his primary position, after two years of being awful, and is mostly horrible at 2B, 3B. Only at 1B is he ok … but we have two guys for 1B already). But he did pound the ball in 2011. I’d be up for him in RF and Werth in CF, if for a short time. He is right-handed though, adding to a very RH heavy lineup (Ramos, Zimmerman, Desmond, Werth and Morse all RH-only). Ideally we’d find some LH-hitting outfield options to help balance things out. Ladson though says he’s not a fit, that Harper would be considered before Cuddyer.

A sad end to a great hitter's career. Photo: pul.se website, unknown origin

It really is a shame to see Manny Ramirez go out in the fashion that he has, scurrying away into retirement instead of facing a second PED suspension. Actually, it was more of a shame to see his first suspension last year, which immediately cast him into a shameful collection of baseball players (McGwire, Bonds, Clemens, Giambi, Sosa, and Palmeiro) who represented the best the game had to offer from the mid 90s to the mid 2000s, but who also defined an era of steroids, PEDs and rampant drug use throughout baseball and probably will never gain entry to the sports Hall of Fame (at least not while they’re alive in all likelihood).

What is amazing about both drug tests is the basic idiocy displayed in actually getting caught. The baseball drug testing policy is already considered to be among the easiest and most basic to skirt, continually being criticized by the WADA for its lack of transparency and lack of accountability. The CBA lays out exactly what drugs are being tested for, and the players pretty much know when and where they’re going to be tested. The policy isn’t nearly as draconian as what (say) professional cyclists go through, yet players continue to use and get caught. The fact that Ramirez got caught twice is really amazing.

A career OPS+ of 154, roughly meaning he batted 50% better than the average major leaguer for his career.

555 career homers, averaging a homer every 14.8 plate appearances.

12 All star appearances, 9 silver sluggers and 11 seasons receiving MVP votes (most being consecutively from the years 1998-2006, not coincidentally the height of the steroid era).

Leaving steroid and PED use out of the equation, one can easily say Ramirez is one of the 4-5 best right handed hitters of the last half century. He can be mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Willie Mays, Albert Pujols, Hank Aaron, and Frank Robinson in terms of being a complete hitter.

Yet, in the end his 2nd drug suspension will define his legacy. He’ll never be in the Hall of Fame, not while we have a voter base that refused to elect Jeff Bagwell in his first year of eligibility, seemingly on the question of whether or not he “could have been using” despite not one shred of proof otherwise.

I’m of two conflicting thoughts on the eligibility considerations for players who used PEDs. On the one hand, the most hallowed records in the game (single season home run and career home run records) were shattered by hitters who artificially enabled themselves to surpass the previous records and forever change the game. Many of the hall voter base are long time baseball writers who grew up idolizing those players whose records were “stolen” by these modern day cheaters, and they will forever penalize the likes of McGwire, Sosa and Bonds for destroying the memory of Ruth, Aaron or Maris. The 2013 hall of fame ballot especially highlights this issue and may be our best test case for how these players are treated.

On the other hand, the culture of the game at the time encouraged and fostered drug use during the mid 90s, and various opinions from players at the time put the overall usage across the entire league in the 75% range. We didn’t discount the pitching performances of players in the dead ball era, nor do we ignore the performance of pitchers in the late 60s who dominated their counterparts during a small era of dominance. We used to have dozens of batters hitting .400 prior to the turn of the century, yet now the best hitters in the league hit in the mid .300s at best. Players in the early parts of the century played in a non-integrated sport, and players in the 60’s and 70’s notoriously used stimulants on a regular basis to make it through the grind of the season. At some point voters need to realize that omitting an entire generation of players based on innuendo or suspicion is doing the game a huge injustice and destroying an entire generation of legacy that merits inclusion in the hall of fame.

There is no good solution. At some point though we need to at least acknowledge this generation’s greatest players. Unfortunately, it probably will take a veteran’s committee 30 years from now to do it.

Si’s Tom Verducci wrote a great piece echoing much of what I’ve said above; it is worth a read.

Every other blogger and pundit on the net seems to have pipped up about Roger Clemens recent federal indictment on charge of perjury for lying to congress. So here’s my take:

What a mess. Others have stated it the same way that I would. The hubris of an athlete assuming that he is above even congress is really amazing. In some ways I hope Bonds and Clemens go to jail to pay for their crimes.

In other ways, I wish that the syndrome of “middle aged white sportswriters eviscorating baseball players for destroying the records of their boyhood heros” would just pass. Yes, every home run record from the mid 90s to the early 2000s is a joke. Yes, the career record now held by Bonds is tainted. McGwire is getting tepid HoF support despite being a significant hitter *before* the advent of Steroids. Sammy Sosa‘s records now look just shameful (especially when combining steroid usage with his corked bat suspension). And you know what? There’s nothing we can do about it.

Alex Rodriguez probably will go down as the greatest hitter to ever play the game. And a serious candidate to overtake Willie Mays as the greatest 5-tool player of all time. Yet his admission of steroids use will taint his legacy just like every other player who comes up for Hall of Fame voting over the next 5 years.

I tried to think of a comparison. Swimming records that fell with regularity with the use of (now banned) body suits. Perhaps track and field records which still stand from systematic drug usage in the 80s by eastern bloc athletes? How about Baseball pitching records before/after the deadball era. Or how about pitching records from 1968, the year before the mound was lowered and Bob Gibson posted a 1.12 era (and somehow had NINE losses??). Aren’t these records still in play, with the discussion topic that immediately follows? How about the infamous “astericks” homer record by Roger Maris, put in place to protect the legacy of Babe Ruth by somehow discounting the amazing accomplishments of Maris. Nobody talks about that now.

But it will never go away. We are baseball fans, and iconic “numbers” now are ruined. 755. 61. Nobody knows what the most touchdown passes thrown in a season is and nobody remembers that “number” like you know 61 homers or 755. And we’ll continue to talk about it for the rest of our lives.